


The next step

by StrangeNoise



Series: Farmerverse [4]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Chickens, Engagement, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Marriage Proposal, More chickens for the family, Sequel, part of a series, surprise proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24806443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeNoise/pseuds/StrangeNoise
Summary: When Nines goes to look after his chickens and finds one missing, he's about to find out it's all part of an elaborate plan by his boyfriend, Gavin, that involves their wing-woman, Amelia Earhart, a second chicken and a small box with a ring inside...
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Farmerverse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596130
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	The next step

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo it's proposing time!  
> There's supposed to be a oneshot between this one and the last, where Gavin and Nines attend Hank and Connor's wedding and some things happen but I just happened to write this one first. I hope there isn't gonna be too much confusion about that!

Nines steps into the backyard on a warm Sunday morning and immediately feels like something is out of place. Gavin hasn’t been at his place the entire weekend which is already weird enough but he said there was a very important case at work he had to work on so Nines just assumes that that’s what keeps him away. It’s a little lonely, considering the two men basically live with each other usually but Nines makes due. He has a job, hobbies, and chickens to tend to.

Thinking of chickens, Nines walks over to the coop to check on them. Ever since it had turned out Calamity Jane was more of a Calamity Jim and the chicken had to move out he feels like some of the others are a little less lively. Every time he notices it, Nines promises the other chickens that he’s going to bring them a new companion but right now he just can’t make the time to buy eggs and he doubts that it would be beneficial for a young chicken to join the group at the beginning of fall. The other chickens are grown and have thick feathers so they’ll be fine even when they’re out a little but the small one might just get sick or freeze to death and Nines wants to prevent that at all costs

“Soon, you’ll get your new baby”, he tells the chickens as he kneels down in front of the coop. Catherine the Great and Eleanor Roosevelt look over to him before they start picking at some corn on the ground. Nines watches them with a smile on his face, then lets his gaze wander through the rest of the coop. By sheer force of habit, he counts the chickens and frowns when he comes up with ten instead of eleven chickens. He counts and re-counts them even if he’s an android and it’s highly unlikely that Nines made a calculation error. When he’s sure one of the chickens is missing, it only takes him half a second to figure out which one it is. Of course, it’s Amelia Earhart.

Nines rises to his feet again and starts looking around the garden to locate the chicken. Luckily, Amelia doesn’t seem to be in the mood to play hide and seek and when he hears a rustle not too far away, Nines turns and immediately finds Amelia wandering about Gavin’s backyard. She has a leaf from the cabbage Gavin is growing in one corner in her beak and looks very proud of herself.

“Why do you always have to do that?”, Nines sighs, knowing full well the chicken can’t understand him but wanting to scold her nonetheless. He jumps over the fence with no effort and walks across Gavin’s backyard to go and retrieve Amelia. The android takes good care not to step on any of Gavin’s precious vegetables which slows him down quite a bit. When he finally catches up to Amelia Earhart, it’s close to one of the few trees in Gavin’s backyard. Nines picks the chicken up with a sigh and looks her in the eyes sternly.

“I don’t know how you got out of that coop but I don’t ever want to see that again”, he tells Amelia and then stops in his tracks. It seems after all this time the chickens are having a weird effect on him. Before, Nines had blamed people’s talking to animals on some type of humanity he just didn’t possess. With Gavin and Hank, it was obviously true because they were human and Connor had a lot of advanced social integration protocols so it was only natural he was going to talk to pets. But Nines himself hadn’t done it much before and had always assumed it was because he was so much more machine-like than his predecessor. That he is talking to Amelia now makes a strange, warm feeling take up residence around Nines’ thirium pump.

With a smile on his face, he makes to leave the garden again but then he hears some clucking and it isn’t coming from Amelia. She’s still stubbornly holding onto her cabbage leaf and making any sound would result in her losing it. So Nines turns towards where the noise came from and find a medium-sized makeshift nest at the foot of the tree he had found Amelia at. In it, sits a young chicken, not quite a chick anymore but not fully grown either. It has the same black feathers with white spots on them that Lena Horne and Sally Ride have but it seems to be younger than them. 

“Now, who are you?”, Nines asks as he kneels down and sets Amelia down to take a look at the other chicken. Amelia immediately scurries off, possibly to get some more cabbage leaves and Nines stays behind. The chicken and the nest look like they have been left there on purpose, no chicken would ever enter a garden and bring a nest with it. Nines wonders if this is some kind of gift from Gavin because he has been complaining about wanting a new chicken for a while now. Nines’ heart starts to beat faster at the thought because even though this is much too valuable a gift to just give someone on a whim, this chicken appears to be old enough to be able to stay outside with the others so they could definitely keep it around.

Nines is just about to go and see if the backdoor to Gavin’s house is open so he can figure out if the man is home and talk to him when the chicken moves and he notices there’s something tied to its leg. Carefully, Nines lifts the chicken – it obviously isn’t used to that yet and flails around quite a bit – and retrieves a small, black box from underneath it. The android puts the chicken down into its nest again and takes a good look at the box. If this chicken is for him, the box is probably too, Nines figures it and opens it. Then he freezes

Inside the box is a beautiful silver ring with a small gemstone in the middle. Nines’ thirium pump starts racing in his chest as he stares at the ring and thinks of all the things this could possibly mean. Then, his gaze wanders to the lid of the box. Inside of it, there’s a tiny slip of paper with the words  _ “will you marry me?”  _ scribbled onto it in Gavin’s hard-to-read handwriting. At this point, Nines is sure his thirium pump is about to burst right out of his chest with excitement. Ever since Hank and Connor’s wedding, Nines and Gavin hadn’t talked about getting married or even engaged much. It seemed like both of them were on board with the idea of getting married but since they had been dating for barely a year, Nines hadn’t been expecting a proposal quite so soon.

The android is still crouched down, staring at the small box in his hand when he hears someone clear their throat behind him. He immediately gets to his feet and spins around to find Gavin in front of him. The detective looks nervous beyond belief but there’s a hopeful smile on his face.

“For me?”, Nines asks, voicebox betraying him as he holds the ring out to Gavin. 

“Of course it’s for you”, Gavin says on a nervous laugh, “I wasn’t exactly trying to propose to the chicken.” Nines wants to laugh at that but all that comes out is a staticky hiccup. His grip around the small box in his hand tightens and he takes a deep breath. 

“I want to marry you, Gavin”, Nines manages to get out without his voice breaking. It feels like a superhuman effort but it’s worth it to see Gavin break out into a bright smile and tears well up in his eyes. 

The android takes the ring out of the box and attempts to place it on his finger but his hands are shaking too much. Gavin closes the distance between them to try and help Nines but his fingers aren’t shaking any less. It takes a combined effort of at least one or two minutes for the two to get the ring placed on Nines’ finger. But then it sits there, the cool metal a stark contrast to the warmth of his synth skin and Nines can't stop staring at it. That is until Gavin places one of his hands on the back of Nines’ neck and pulls the android in for a kiss. There are fireworks going off in Nines’ brain and it seems to take his circuits an eternity to compute the new information that is: He is engaged to Gavin Reed. 

When they eventually break apart, both Gavin and Nines have tears in their eyes and they’re still trembling. They just stand there, smiling at each other, until Amelia passes through, her beak stuffed full of cabbage leaves, and drops them near the new chicken.

“Oh, right”, Gavin says and clears his throat as if he had forgotten all about the black chicken for the time being, “This charming young lady is an engagement gift for you, Nines. You were so upset that we couldn’t get a new chicken before spring so I contacted whatever farms in the area I could find to get you a chicken before then.” 

“You’re insane, Gavin”, Nines sighs, “Thank you so much.” Then, the android pulls his partner into another kiss.

“Don’t forget to thank our dear Amelia”, Gavin tells Nines once they break apart again, “She played her part as wing-woman wonderfully.” 

“You made the chicken help you with the proposal?”, Nines wants to know, an amused smile spreading on his face. 

“Who else? She was the one, who got us together after all. So I figured, why not make her help me propose to you too?”

Nines can’t help but laugh at Gavin’s explanation and he isn’t sure if he wants to hug his fiancé or the chicken first. He ends up pulling Gavin into a third kiss first because just thinking about him as his fiancé fills the android with a type of giddy excitement he never felt before. The range of emotions he is capable of still never ceases to amaze Nines, especially because most of them are brought forward by Gavin. One day, Nines silently vows to himself, he’s going to tell his partner how he always makes him feel so much more than the android ever thought he was capable of feeling. 

But for now, Nines figures, the two of them have more important things to take care of. Both Gavin and Nines grab a chicken each and carry them over to the coop. Then, they sit down in front of it and watch the animals get to know each other. Their new chicken is shy but the others treat it nicely enough. And so the two men spend the rest of the day in front of the coop, exchanging kisses and dopey smiles as they plan their wedding and try to come up with a fitting name for their newest family member. By the time they head inside for the night, Nines’ head is spinning with how happy he is. And even though he just got engaged, he can’t wait to finally get married to Gavin. Now he only has to convince his fiancé that the chickens  _ have to _ be around for the ceremony. But the android is certain he’ll come up with something to convince his partner…


End file.
